Jump
by Silver Sky 1138
Summary: No, Anakin. I am your son.
1. Teaser

_A/N 1: This is a reworking of 'Jump' by skywalker05. That story will be edited and extended by ArgenteusDraco and skywalker05. _

_A/N 2: The Star Wars canon and all related names, places, events and previously published dialogue belong to Mr. George Lucas. The original idea for this fic, the quote as in the summary, came from my brother._ _The name Ruen came in part from my Padawan. skywalker_

**Jump**

Teaser Chapter

Anakin Skywalker remembered some of the feel of the old skill in this new place, the underbelly of Cloud City. It seemed to him that when Mustafar had charred his body some of his midi-chlorians had burned away too. Now Anakin inhabited the body of what he had always feared to be, an eternal Padawan. But when the Sith Lord slammed down from above out of hiding, Anakin still could meet the red lightsaber with his own blue. They fenced--block, twist-- both of them on a wide, corrugated corridor now, the heat seeming to search for the synthflesh patches still needed on his skin.

He was driven back, room to passage down to an alcove where an enormous window, artistically and fearfully styled, looked out on expanse, probably a reactor shaft. Darth Ruen paced forward, removed one hand from his lightsaber, and gestured. Anakin rushed forward, taking his opportunity to the younger man's lowered guard, but he was buffeted aside by something metal colliding with his side, pushing him away. He staggered. Metal tore and flew from the walls, almost gently pushing him around, bruising him--but the Sith would not let him die yet, and Qui-Gon had long since dissuaded him from _working _toward that eventual release. Darth Ruen retreated into the shadows, a twisted smile coming to his lips.

Anakin whipped hair out of his face in the maelstrom of Force-pungency and metal components hurtling off the walls. He stepped aside from a thick conduit and bisected it with his lightsaber, watching, always tracking as -- one half crashed through the window, and even while he ran back and crouched away from the glass the natural wind picked up, cold, and threw him off balance, off his feet, out into the void--!

He tumbled, but caught the railing of a catwalk stretching out into the reactor shaft. The world stopped blurring. He quickly pulled himself onto the solid surface, heart pounding. The abyss gaped around him. A trapezoidal door to his left lead to a control room.

Darth Ruen paced toward him through that door, red-edged cloak flaring around his black silhouette in the rare air of the shaft, and Anakin again lifted his aching arms with the lit sword.

They came together, clash _clash_. Sparks rained from the railing of the catwalk, victim of their clumsiness, Anakin's old weakness and Ruen's inhibition — and why was he inhibited? He faced the hero of the Rebellion, his ultimate opposition, and still Anakin had the feeling that he was being toyed with.

One deft move of Ruen's lightsaber took Anakin's left hand and lightsaber off at the wrist.

He had to realize what had happened, realize that he was screaming, lying weak at the Sith's feet. He lifted his hand of metal to grasp the Force, but its filaments slipped through the fingers of his mind and dilute blood. Ruen lifted Anakin on lines of energy the Jedi could barely feel, and slammed him against the cluster of sensor tubes at the walkway's end, high above anything. Anakin found a low handhold and would not release it, and tried to ignore his maimed arm, tried not to wretch, even though he was, by this point, almost numb to the idea of losing a hand. It hurt more the first time…

Darth Ruen, his sword put away, stood on the catwalk and towered over Anakin. "You are beaten." He said evenly, quietly. "There is no escape. Join me, and we will rule the galaxy together as the last Sith." He stretched a black-gloved hand out toward Anakin, human and yet monster-eyed.

Anakin struggled up and out of the way of his foe's reach, farther around on his precarious perch and farther away from the safe ground. _So I must jump again…_

He shouted, "I'll never join you!"

Ruen folded his arms over his chest. Calmly, emotionlessly, he said, "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your child."

Anakin fought the hate and the tears in his eyes. If only he could leap, strike, control his younger self's unstoppable -- _enough looking back at the dead_. "'He told me enough. He told me your Master killed it. He went and found--"

Ruen spoke softly over Anakin's shouting. "No, Anakin. _I _am your son."

Anakin had come too far to speak. He jumped again--


	2. Chapter 1

**Jump**

_Chapter 1_

Obi-Wan Kenobi was not truly a sentient man at this moment, just as he had not been when he'd fought the general Grievous on Utapau.

He was the Force, the whirlwind, the light, as he leapt, attacking without antagonisms and missing his planned cut, and rolled onto the near-burning shore. He got a second's look at his former Padawan, familiar, fierce Anakin Skywalker, poised on a tiny relay droid's casing as it hovered over the lava flows that dipped ponderously toward the cataract's lethal edge.

Anakin jumped, a surge of final effort, pain and darkness. Obi-Wan's lightsaber scored a sear down his left side and he fell, ungainly, higher up the shoreline that was beginning to char Obi-Wan's hair. Anakin–Darth Vader, _I must know him as the Sith!_–crawled a few paces and screamed at the fury of the black sand getting on his hands and against his face. Obi-Wan leveled his lightsaber at the younger man, whose weapon had rolled down the hillside and vanished with a plash of flare into the conflagration.

Obi-Wan the Jedi Master prepared to kill his best friend, the helpless Sith before him. Obi-Wan the man screamed over roaring Mustafar; "You were the chosen one! It was said you would _destroy_ the Sith, not _join _them! It was you who would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness! You were my _brother_, Anakin."

"Obi-Wan..." And the Force felt a spark of hope arise in the dying thoughts of the darkened Jedi. Anakin looked up; a silver ship floated by overhead. "Master... help me..." It was Palpatine in that ship, come to steal the child of the Chosen One. He had not come to rescue his apprentice. In that moment, Anakin realized that he'd been coerced, trapped, lied to - he was expendable.

Obi-Wan knew it too. He turned and looked at the fallen apprentice - still his apprentice, still the boy he'd known years ago. In so many ways, Anakin had changed. He was no longer so carefree, so easily trusting or loving. Something had corrupted him. Vader.

Vader was burning. But Anakin could be saved. Maybe.

The Master started back down the hillside, careful not to slip in the ashy dirt. He picked Anakin up with the Force, knowing the pain that touching his skin would cause.

They struggled up each black hill, leaning on the energy that poured from Obi-Wan to his fallen apprentice, spiraling in like star-stuff to a black hole.

All to late. The Chancellor's shuttle–the Emperor's, Obi-Wan reminded himself bitterly–set down on the same platform that the Jedi neared after their seemingly aeons-long hike, the same one holding Padmé's ship, and the two droids. Obi-Wan and Anakin, the Master willful and the Knight shattered enough to do exactly what he was told, crouched behind a great boulder and breathed the cooler, brimstone-scented air.

Palpatine/Sidious took Padmé away in a strange, sophisticated medical vehicle. Clone troopers entered the Nubian skiff, but only to take the droids to Palpatine's shuttle.

After it took off, Anakin went to the platform and fell to his knees. Obi-Wan thought he was going to die. He tried to scream, but all he could manage was a dull whisper. "Padmé!"

Then he collapsed.

Left without other options, Obi-Wan dragged Anakin onto Padmé's abandoned ship. He was not a medical expert, but he could hook Anakin up to the ship's emergency equipment–and he could tell when someone wasn't breathing.

He flew away from Mustafar and sat with disorganized thoughts beside his apprentice, the shushing sound of the respirator he had put Anakin on repeating over and over in his head, until he got the message from Yoda to meet at a certain medical station on a world called Polis Massa, in a galaxy where only two Jedi Masters remained.

He was immediately relieved to learn that he would not be rehabilitating Anakin on his own.


End file.
